Book Review: Researching Values with Qualitative Methods: Empathy,Moral Boundaries and the Politics of Research

There is generally a silence about how the process of qualitative research transpires with particular reference to ease or discomfort in undertaking our specific research projects; this idea forms the basis of Bednarek-Gilland’s book, Researching Values with Qualitative Methods. An important part of qualitative research in sociology is value-bound, demanding of the researcher an empathetic capacity. Yet, there is limited acknowledgement of this in research training and preconceptions within sociological communities. This book does an excellent job of locating these taken-for-granted requirements in qualitative research and goes beyond to include a critique of the politics of qualitative sociological research from the view of those not studying the oppressed peoples in society.

Breaking down the concept of values using Max Weber’s Verstehen, Bednarek-Gilland suggests that qualitative research necessarily requires engagement with values and judgements. The themes and questions that steer the book fall into individual chapters that relate to:

Thus, Bednarek-Gilland poses an ambitious task. The book draws, in part, on research done by the author with young Scottish Conservatives. Although Bednarek-Gilland does not classify themselves as in support of the ideology, they found that their research was seen as ‘non-empathetic’ and granted less support within the sociological community. On enquiring into this the author argues that insider research often mistakes empathy for sympathy and pity, and questions the apparent bias towards insider research as more reliable (p. 39). This is reflected in prevalent political ideology within the research community, according to the author, where ‘[q]ualitative research and ethnographic research in particular thus harbour a substantial critical potential which is voiced from a specific political standpoint’ (p. 89). Accordingly, rather than go against this tide in sociology, academics take forward a social justice agenda for which a considerable amount of funding is awarded.

Researching Values with Qualitative Methods therefore calls on the reader to reconsider the role of their own values and moral boundaries in social research; the way in which empathy features as a research tool and to consider how this may be effectively taught to overcome biases in research; and finally to question the politicisation of research.

This book raises important questions about doing qualitative research for the individual through to the research community. However, there are some arguments that are weak. When talking about the privilege of minority groups in conducting insider research as exclusionary, and that outsiders are denied the validity of studying such groups (see p. 38–39) there is a failure to acknowledge two things. First, there are arguments for either insider or outsider research based on the aim of the project, part of which requires a consideration of the researched. Suggesting that doing qualitative research with a culturally different group is a ‘great advantage’ (p. 47) belittles insider research. Instead, the criticism of acknowledging values and moral boundaries ought to be a blanket requirement. This relates to a second point that there is a plethora of work undertaken by outsider researchers. An example that roused concern about representing the other in anthropological ethnographic research was in relation to the work by Napoleon Chagnon of the Yanomami peoples (see Ferguson, 2015). Eminent anthropologist, Marshall Sahlins (2000) suggested that the position Chagnon held enabled him to do ‘fieldwork in the mode of a military campaign’. Such concerns about representation and power are central to feminist perspectives, particularly feminist geography, calling for a consideration of positionality in research (Katz, 1994; Rose, 1997). It has only been relatively recently that feminist and indigenous perspectives (which the author seems to use interchangeably with postcolonialism), both of which are selectively criticised in this book, have gained traction amongst more social scientists. This also reveals that the social sciences change, much like any other form of knowledge, when new perspectives become available.

Overall, Researching Values with Qualitative Methods raises questions that are relevant today as we see the so-called rise of the right. It is important to study the motivations of these groups, and a pragmatic perspective may be helpful in doing so effectively. The book offers some tips on how to overcome problems in doing qualitative research about such values. Finally, as a research community, it is integral that we respond to the questions raised by Bednarek-Gilland regarding doing empathetic qualitative research.